So this year, as in the past, more and more of Lu Xun’s writings are being purged from high school textbooks, a fact that has some Chinese parents upset.

Revered as the most powerful Chinese writer to emerge from the 20th Century, Lu Xun was a full-blooded, independent thinker, untamed by any ideology and pointedly skeptical of politicians.

Moreover, he believed that memory – historical memory – is vitally important in the development of a nation.

And there’s the problem.

China likes to boast that it has “5,000 years of history,” and it does, studded with outstanding achievements.

But people are hazy on details about the last 65, that is, the period since the Communist Party took over.

That is by design.

The anti-right purges, the Great Famine, the Cultural Revolution, the Tiananmen Square massacre – all of these catastrophes took place under Party leadership. Historian Frank Dikotter points out that from 1958 to 1962 alone, 45 million Chinese perished from government violence and incompetence.

None of that is ever taught in schools.

Small surprise then that this year, Lu Xun’s story “The Kite,” which stresses the importance of memory, has finally been expunged.

Chinese scholar Liz Carter, citing an essay by colleague Paul B. Foster, notes that “The Kite” warns against forgetfulness, emphasizing that real enlightenment can only come with the careful development of historical memory.

An article posted by the state’s own Xinhua News Agency this week defended the purge, saying students “should not be reading anything too deep.”

That stirred indignant discussion online.

Soon, China Daily in its USA edition, quoted sources saying the purge never took place.

Lu Xun had something to say about that too.

“Lies written in ink can never disguise facts written in blood. Blood debts must be paid in kind: the longer the delay, the greater the interest.”

Small wonder Lu Xun still strikes fear among the powerful.

Bill Schiller has held bureau postings for the Toronto Star in Johannesburg, Berlin, London and Beijing. He is a NNA and Amnesty International Award winner, and a Harvard Nieman Fellow from the class of '06. Follow him on Twitter @wschiller

07/30/2013

A Guantanamo detainee reading in Camp 6 on March 30, 2010, in a photo reviewed and cleared for release by the U.S. Department of Defense. MICHELLE SHEPHARD/TORONTO STAR

He gazes at me for a moment, bewildered, as if I'm some kind of science experiment.

"You are in a bad temper this morning."

"It was just a shock, that's all," I repeat petulantly.

Clasping the lapels of my robe, he pulls me into a warm embrace, kisses my hair, and presses my head against his chest. I'm distracted by his chest hair as it tickles my cheek. Oh, if I could just nuzzle him!

(Fifty Shades of Darker, EL James, #1 New York Times Bestseller)

This is what Guantanamo's "high-value" detainees - the men held in a the prison's secret Camp 7, some of whom are on trial for the 9/11 attacks - are reading?

"Rather than the Quran, the book that is requested most by the (high-value detainees) is Fifty Shades of Grey," Moran said.
"They've read the entire series in English, but we were willing to
translate it," Moran told
the HuffPost. "I guess there's not much going on, these guys are going
nowhere, so what the hell."

And book and DVD selections have often made headlines in the past. Harry Potter was a favourite. Twilight got luke warm reviews. The 1990's sitcom staring Will Smith, Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, was reportedly hot recently. There are about 18,000 books (9,000 titles) in Guantanamo's library according to the librarian who asked to be identified during a recent tour as "Milton." But Milton told the New York Times' Charlie Savage that the books are screened if they include "too much sex and violence."

So S&M soft porn delievered to inmates in a part of the prison that the military won't even acknowledge exists?

07/10/2013

Bedouin women protest against a plan that would formally recognise Bedouin communities in the Negev desert, but could uproot 30,000 Bedouins from their homes. Photo: Reuters/Ammar Awad

In a world of catastrophes, coups and civil wars it’s hard to focus on the off-track issues that seldom hit the limelight.

But the plight of 1,000 obscure, traditional cave-dwellers in the arid southern West Bank has moved 25 of Israel’s most famous authors to aim the sharp end of their pens at the Israeli authorities.

Their petition, written by acclaimed novelist David Grossman – named among the 100 greatest Israelis of all time -- calls for a halt to the planned evacuation of eight Palestinian communities in the South Hebron Hills. Israel says the move is needed to clear the way for a military training zone.

Now, as a 13-year legal battle against the evictions heads for a final appeal in Israel’s supreme court, 70 eminent Canadian writers have joined the protest, including Life of Pi author Yann Martel, Booker Prize winner Michael Ondaatje, parliamentary poet laureate Fred Wah and Holocaust survivor and author Gabor Mate.

The
Israeli government maintains that the military free-fire zone in South
Hebron is not a “suitable environment” for permanent residence,
according to the Guardian.

The Canadians also urge Israel to reject the Prawer-Begin resettlement bill, under which some Bedouin villages in the Negev desert would be formally recognized, but 30,000 Israeli Bedouins could be forcibly relocated and about 35 “unrecognized” communities destroyed. It passed first reading in the Israeli Knesset last week, and evictions are due to begin in August.

“It is inspiring to see Canadian writers demonstrating ethical leadership,” says Thomas Woodley, president of Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, “when Canada’s leaders seem to have lost their moral compass.”

“The clarity of the situation is obvious,” said Martel, speaking from Saskatoon. “Many of the Palestinians in the (South Hebron) firing zone have been there for generations. They have papers to prove they live there. The Israelis are occupying land that not a single country in the world agrees they should occupy.”

And he adds, “it’s not just foreigners who are against this. (The petition) is backed by people on the ground.”

The Israeli writers’ petition says that Israel has been “actively expelling and displacing the inhabitants of the South Hebron Hills villages” for 20 years, damaging their archaic lifestyle as cave-dwellers who eke out a living from raising sheep and goats and small crop farming.

“Over the years they have suffered unceasing harassment by the Israeli army and settlers,” it said. Some villagers were evicted starting in 1999, and their caves blocked up. But those who were able to return pending the appeal decision lead a hardscrabble life without a water or electricity supply.

Even if the Israeli court rejects the appeal of the Palestinian cave-dwellers, and thousands of Bedouin are evicted, says Martel, “it’s about injustice, and Israel itself has suffered injustice.

“But injustice doesn’t go away. It’s being felt more palpably around the world. If these plans continue, in the short term Israel may win. But in the long term it will lose.”

Olivia Wardhas covered conflict, politics and human rights in the former Soviet Union, Middle East and South Asia, winning national and international awards.

03/28/2013

Malala Yousafzai is
Pakistan’s most visible champion of a woman’s right to an education, but she's not her country's only one.

Five months after the 14-year-old
Yousafzai was shot while riding a school bus, the victim of a Taliban gunman, a
female teacher who worked at a girls’ school near the city of Peshawar was killed in a driveby shooting.

Shehnaz Ishtiaq, 41, was
killed Tuesday by an assailant who rode a motorcycle.
She was walking to a girls’ primary school in Shahkas in Pakistan’s
Khyber district when she was shot to death. Ishtiaq worked as a teacher for 22
years and was shot to death in front of her teenaged son,
Pakistan’s Express Tribune newspaper reports.

Ishtiaq, a mother of three,
was shot three times and died after being taken to a local hospital for
surgery.

Yousafzai angered the Taliban
for her willingness to speak plainly and defiantly in support of gender
equality.

After the Taliban took
control of her hometown and announced girls would no longer be educated at
schools, Yousafzai spoke to the matter at a press conference.

“How dare the Taliban take
away my basic right to an education,” she said at the time.

After being shot in the head
in October, Yousafzai was taken to England, where she has made a remarkable
recovery. She’s now attending school there and on Wednesday, reportedly agreed to write a memoir called "Malala" for $3 million.

It’s unclear whether Ishtiaq
was as vocal about her views.

“She never told me about any
threats or fears she had… she was not scared of militancy in the region,”
Ishtiaq’s husband told The Express Tribune.

Police have arrested 25
suspects and seized 10 motorcycles, according to a local press report.

UN Special Envoy for Global Education Gordon Brown has written to Pakistan President Asif Zardari asking for better security measures to protect girls and teachers going to school.

It's hard to imagine Brown's interest will improve conditions for women in Pakistan, where only 20 per cent of women work outside the home, and most of those are unpaid labourers in agriculture, according to the International Labor Organization.

The ILO says among other challeges, women lack safe, secure
public transportation in Pakistan. On public buses, for instance, the two front seats next to the driver are reserved for women while the rest of the bus is for men, the ILO says, according to a recent Voice of America report.

“We haven't
been able to change people's mindset because we fail to provide
education, we fail to give them a sufficient level of exposure so the
people should know, and we fail to even provide conditions where women
themselves can be empowered enough to protect themselves against all
kinds of cultural and traditional violence," Farzana Bari, a professor of gender studies
at Qaid-e-Azzim University in Islamabad, told VOA in an interview.

Rick Westhead is a foreign affairs writer at the Star. He
was based in India as the Star’s South Asia bureau chief from 2008 until 2011
and reports on international aid and development. Follow him on Twitter @rwesthead

02/28/2013

Now, North Korea’s late, great “Dear Leader,” Kim Jong-il
shall have his life immortalized in an, “as dictated to” autobiography penned
by self-proclaimed ghost writer to the stars, Michael Malice.

The writer, fresh off the plane with a suitcase full of
propaganda he personally spirited out of Pyongyang, says he’s ready to write
the unauthorized tome, Dear Reader, just
“the way the Dear Leader would have wanted it.”

Malice promises he’ll sort fact from fiction in his research
of the famous man who, until his death in Dec. 2011, rattled the West repeatedly
with threats to use nuclear weapons.

Kim Jong-il, “may not have invented the hamburger,” Malice
offers authoritatively – debunking a claim the Dear Leader made in July 2004. But
he did invent a lot of other stuff, like operas and calendars.

And for Malice, he remains “the ultimate celebrity ghost.”

True, Malice never had a single sit down with Kim, the way
Malice has with other subjects like music star Brett Michaels and footballer
Matt Hughes. But he feels he can rely – in the main – on bedrock North Korean
propaganda like Kim Jong Il: Lodestar of
the 21st Century and a dozen other definitive works.

Just how he’ll work in Pyongyang
Ostrich Ranch – which Malice promises to do – he hasn’t revealed.

And what better way to fund a book about a man of the masses,
he says, than by the masses themselves?

Malice launched his fund raising efforts on Kickstarter.com
this week, already amassing more than 100 supporters, while simultaneously
mounting an email campaign aimed at influential Western journalists (ahem!) with
the wily opener, “Greetings, fellow imperialist!”

Make no mistake though, Malice has a track record for
success.

Concierge Confidential,which he co-authored with Manhattan concierge Michael Fazio, won a strong
following in the U.S.

Could Dear Reader be a similarly explosive success?

Oh – let’s not go there.

Bill
Schiller has
held bureau postings for the Toronto Star in Johannesburg, Berlin,
London and Beijing. He is a NNA and Amnesty International Award
winner, and a Harvard Nieman Fellow from the class of '06. Follow him
on Twitter @wschiller

02/07/2013

Chinese novelist Yan Lianke is currently in the running for the Man Booker International Prize. (Courtesy of Publishers Group Canada Perseus Books Group)

The early 20th century poet Ezra Pound liked to say that artists are the antennae of the race.

But in China, antennae sometimes become lightning rods, atttracting the wrath of a government still keen to curb insight and free speech. Being an artist in China, as writers like Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo and multi-talented Ai Wei Wei know, comes with risks.

One who has danced and dodged the official lightning bolts is Chinese novelist Yan Lianke, currently in the running for the Man Booker International Prize. Yan's new book, Lenin's Kisses, is out in the U.K. this week and Guardian correspondent Tania Branigan has a timely and insightful interview with him in Beijing in which he pulls no punches.

"Chinese intellectuals haven't taken responsibility," he says. "They always have an excuse, saying they don't have a reason to talk or don't have the environment...If they could all stand up, they would have a loud voice."

Yan's last book, Dream of Ding Village, dared to deal with the tainted blood scandal that ravaged Henan province in the 1990s and caused widespread HIV infections. But like so much of China's difficult past, it has never been dealt with openly. Government has never taken responsibility.

Yet Yan isn't just hard on others - he's equally hard on himself. He feels he didn't go far enough in his Ding Village book and self-censored himself in order to ensure the book's publication.

"I understand people who don't use their voice," he says. "I think as an author I could have taken more responsibility and I didn't."

In Mao's time this might be called a stinging 'self-criticism.' But in this interview Yan emerges as someone who is at once noble, courageous and humble.

Bill Schiller has held
bureau postings for the Toronto Star in Johannesburg,
Berlin, London
and Beijing. He
is a NNA and Amnesty International Award winner, and a Harvard Nieman Fellow
from the class of '06. Follow him on Twitter @wschiller

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